Kimberley B Pinzon
asked
Jennifer Skogen:
My middle school students are reading your book Shattered during sustained reading time. They are curious about you and have a couple of questions: 1) What gave you the idea to write Shattered? 2) What is our favorite memory from middle school? 3) Do you have an author website they can visit? We know you must be quite busy, so we appreciate any time you can spare us to answer our questions. KBP Read 180 Teacher
Jennifer Skogen
Hi Kimberley!
Thanks for taking the time to write me. I'd love to answer your questions. Here goes:
1. The idea for Shattered came from my childhood. I grew up with horses, and Hippo is basically my childhood horse. I also lived in the middle of the woods. While my house wasn't quite as isolated as the cabin in Natalie's story, it was still fairly remote. One winter it snowed so much that we couldn't leave our property for four days. That feeling of being trapped was exciting at the time (we had plenty of food, and I had my family with me). But I always wondered what I would have done had I been all alone. The other part of the story (Natalie dealing with the loss of her mother) came from my own experience with grief. I think writing about the loss of a parent, from a distance of many years now, can help put words to feelings I didn't know I was experiencing at the time.
2. My favorite memory from middle school would have to be a class trip we took in 6th grade to Mount St. Helens. We hiked around the dusty, strange landscape and learned about the 1980 eruption. I remember that flowers and small plants were growing, even though most of the area looked bare and lifeless. A park ranger explained that even though the whole area was pretty much destroyed at the time, life was returning. I thought that was really inspiring, and that hike was probably the start of my love of hiking (which is one of my main hobbies, besides reading and writing).
3. I do not have an author website right now (I have been working on setting one up). I do have my author page on Goodreads (as you know :) ) and I am also on Twitter.
Thanks again for writing! I hope your class enjoys Shattered, and all the other books they read this year.
Jennifer Skogen
Thanks for taking the time to write me. I'd love to answer your questions. Here goes:
1. The idea for Shattered came from my childhood. I grew up with horses, and Hippo is basically my childhood horse. I also lived in the middle of the woods. While my house wasn't quite as isolated as the cabin in Natalie's story, it was still fairly remote. One winter it snowed so much that we couldn't leave our property for four days. That feeling of being trapped was exciting at the time (we had plenty of food, and I had my family with me). But I always wondered what I would have done had I been all alone. The other part of the story (Natalie dealing with the loss of her mother) came from my own experience with grief. I think writing about the loss of a parent, from a distance of many years now, can help put words to feelings I didn't know I was experiencing at the time.
2. My favorite memory from middle school would have to be a class trip we took in 6th grade to Mount St. Helens. We hiked around the dusty, strange landscape and learned about the 1980 eruption. I remember that flowers and small plants were growing, even though most of the area looked bare and lifeless. A park ranger explained that even though the whole area was pretty much destroyed at the time, life was returning. I thought that was really inspiring, and that hike was probably the start of my love of hiking (which is one of my main hobbies, besides reading and writing).
3. I do not have an author website right now (I have been working on setting one up). I do have my author page on Goodreads (as you know :) ) and I am also on Twitter.
Thanks again for writing! I hope your class enjoys Shattered, and all the other books they read this year.
Jennifer Skogen
More Answered Questions
SALLY
asked
Jennifer Skogen:
Hello Jennifer, I'm a sixth grade student who goes to Middle School in Colorado and I have recently read your book Shattered, and now I'm doing a book report about Shattered and you, the author. I was wondering if you could answer these questions I have about you to use for my report 1)Where were you born/Where did you grow up? 2) When is your birthday? Thank You for taking the time to read this.
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